


Things That Never Happened

by lightningwaltz



Category: 999: Nine Hours Nine Persons Nine Doors - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Major Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-17
Updated: 2011-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-27 10:59:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Akane is haunted by parallel worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things That Never Happened

Akane never died in the first Nonary Game.

Her heart still beats, she’s still around to laugh and argue with Aoi, and she doesn’t have a single burn on her body.

But somehow, somewhere, (a parallel universe maybe? She and her brother have debated this for hours) Akane was murdered and the aftershocks from that hypothetical world have bled through to this one. That’s the only explanation for why she can sometimes feel flames consuming her body, melting her down into nothingness.

_(The last thing Akane’s aware of in that life of is her brother screaming.)_

For some time she allows herself the luxury of fear and self-pity. But then horror gives way to resolve; she and Aoi have always been stubborn, stubborn down to their bones. And anyway Akane doesn’t particularly feel like being defeated by some stupid metaphysical loophole.

It’s amazing how quickly one can become desensitized to… anything, really. Her mind travels through the myriad of outcomes of the second Nonary Game, and she dies in all but one of them. She makes peace with idea that there’s a second dead Akane shadowing her soul, like a persistent ghost.

Her brother though… He has a second self too. And the older she gets, she begins to understand that Aoi is poisoned by guilt for a death that never happened.

“I’m so sorry,” she says, one day.

Aoi looks at her like she’s speaking a foreign language. “For what?”


End file.
